Stealing Fire (22 page)

“The race wore them out too,” Ptolemy said, a ghost of his old grin on his face. “We kept the pressure on. We're too tired to go at it tonight, but so are they.”

“And you have rested men here and he doesn't,” Artashir said, gesturing to the boy who brought around watered wine that had been chilling in the lowest and coolest storeroom. The scent of roasting duck wafted up from the ovens. We sat around a table in the Persian style, but the olives and goat cheese brought around with fresh bread was pure Greek.

“Many thanks for that,” Ptolemy said, as the infantry commanders dug right in. “No good food for a few days makes you appreciate it.”

I looked at Artashir and him at me. It was his idea, but I might be closer to Ptolemy. Go on, I tried to signal him, you should have the credit.

“There is little use for horse archers or cavalry in a fortress,” Artashir said. “I have been wondering if it would not be better for Lydias and myself to quit the fort and cross the river so that we can harass Perdiccas’ army while it sits encamped.”

Ptolemy nodded thoughtfully, chewing on a piece of bread. “And how would you get across, with Perdiccas now encamped on the opposite side?”

“We would have to leave under cover of night,” I said. “If we continue upriver to just short of where the Bubasite branch of the Nile splits, we could get across there and come back on the eastern side. It's not a proper ford, but it's shallow except for the main channel and we could swim the horses there.”

“That takes you nearly to Bubastis.” Ptolemy frowned. “That's a long way out of the way. And how do you know whether it's shallow or not?”

“I remember that when we brought the hearse this way on a barge from Pelousion that the bargemen said that in the dry season it was shallow enough to cross except for the main channel, and that boats must take care not to run aground. How should I not remember where it was?”

Ptolemy looked amused. “I must remember that you have enough Egyptian to chat with the bargemen! That's useful.”

“It won't take us more than a full night to get up there,” Artashir said. “We can be back and working on them by midafternoon.”

“On tired horses when they outnumber you with fresh cavalry?”

I spread my hands. “We wait. We rest. We fall on them the next night. And while he'll send some cavalry after us, Perdiccas won't dare chase us in force, lest we be a diversion for you making a sortie from the fort. If you and your men rest tonight, we can be gone tonight and troubling them tomorrow night.”

“And if Perdiccas attacks tomorrow, you're my late afternoon relief,” Ptolemy said, reaching for another piece of bread. “He won't know what you are or that you're not the advance guard of another force, so he'll break off if he's engaged so as not to face two fronts.” He took a bite. “I like it.”

That would buy us two days, I thought. Today and tomorrow, the first two of the nine days’ run. I said nothing about that, but I believed it. How could I not believe it in my bones?

A
T DAWN WE
halted just outside Bubastis and rested horses and men. Another dawn, another morning when I had not seen a bed.

The sun rose livid out of the Nile. A white ibis started up from the reeds beside the road, spreading his pale wings. The smoke from the cooking fires of Bubastis stained the sky, rising from temple and town. We rested for two hours and then crossed the river.

The current was very slow, and for most of the way across the water came only to my horse's shoulder. Midstream there was a channel that was a little deeper, and we had to swim the horses for perhaps five or six lengths before their feet found purchase again.

“Look out for that,” Glaukos said, as along the opposite bank several medium-sized crocodiles lowered themselves into the water.

“I can take care of that,” Artashir said, taking the bow from his back and drawing it with a single smooth motion. An arrow flashed, hitting one of the crocodiles that had just splashed into the shallows. Blood blossomed in the water, the wounded crocodile thrashing madly, the arrow standing out from the top of its head.

“Nice shot,” I said.

Artashir bowed from the saddle. “My pleasure.”

The other crocodiles turned about, drawn by the blood in the water, attacking their wounded fellow.

“Get everybody ashore as fast as you can,” I said. I leaned back, looking over my shoulder. “Come on! Get on with it!”

Several more crocodiles splashed in, but Artashir's horse archers fired to good effect, and we all reached the shore entirely without casualties, though my horse was sweating and jumping.

Later, I rode beside Artashir near the front of the column. The sun was hot, and my chiton dried to my skin beneath my breastplate, which seemed hot enough to cook on. I envied Artashir his light silks and leathers. The Persian horse archers did not wear steel.

“A long way from Babylon,” he said, shading his eyes with one hand and looking ahead to where Perdiccas’ men must now besiege our fort.

“A long way,” I said.

Artashir looked up at a movement, but it was only a hawk turning slowly on the wing over the lands of the Delta. “I swore my oaths to Alexander at Ecbatana,” he said softly. “Before that, I was just one of the men, following my kinsman, Oxathres, as was my duty.” Artashir looked at me sideways. “We expected to die. We were the conquered, and we expected that Alexander would behave as a conqueror does. That he embraced Oxathres as a brother, that he ruled as Great King for the good of Persia as well, was something entirely unexpected. It cost him, of course. How could it not?”

“Not more than he was willing to pay,” I said.

Artashir nodded. “No, not more. And that is the thing I still do not understand. When so many of his own men hated that he treated us as civilized people, not barbarians, when they hated and resented our officers taking their place among them, he still persisted.”

“Perhaps it was only common sense,” I said. “After all, the Persian Empire is vast. If Oxathres and others had not made peace we should still be at war, trying to put down one rebellion after another. Alexander wanted to be Great King. Once he was and was recognized as such, why then should he make war on his own subjects or take what was theirs? Is it not better to be given allegiance freely, and have a proud people as allies rather than enemies?”

“You may think so,” Artashir said, “but very few of your countrymen agree. They saw Persia as a source of rich spoils, and still do. They were incensed when Alexander took Princess Stateira as his wife, that he should mingle his blood with that of the Achaemenids.”

“They are not my countrymen,” I said. “Remember, I am no part of Macedon, Artashir. I am Carian, and perhaps Greek if you stretch a point of blood. But I am no more Macedonian than you.”

“Ptolemy is,” Artashir said.

“And so was Alexander,” I replied. “So it is not about Macedon. It is about two different kinds of men, and I think those are found in any land.”

Artashir sighed. “Yes, there are certainly those in Persia who hate that which is not of us. And I see that they have had the governing of Egypt recently and have made our names a curse throughout the Black Land. But it was not always thus, you know. Darius the Great ruled Egypt fairly and well, and his wife Artystone was the daughter of an Egyptian princess from Sais. It was only his descendants who became so hated, in lesser days when weaker men ruled. And they ruled Persia as poorly as Egypt.”

My eyebrows rose. I had never heard Artashir criticize the Great Kings, even obliquely.

“Even though we are taught to reject the Lie, and to worship the Truth as Auramazda created it, there are always men who do not. Evil exists, my friend, whether we like it or not. And more often than not it is petty evil, the selfishness of men for more than that which they deserve, but it is the Lie all the same.” Artashir shrugged, his hands on his reins. “When I saw Alexander, and knew how he was, that he had spared the family of Darius and that he opposed Bessos the usurper who had killed Darius by treachery, I said, there is one who serves the Truth. And whatever his country, I am on his side for I am choosing the side of Truth. In Ecbatana I made my own oaths.”

I swallowed. “Before or after Hephaistion died?”

Artashir looked at me sideways. “Before, of course,” he said. “There was no after.”

“Do you think it was poison?” I asked.

Artashir was silent a moment, swaying slightly with the movement of his walking horse. “No. Yes. Who knows? He had enemies enough, but a poison that takes so long to kill and is so much like illnesses many others have had? It does not matter why he died, only that he did.”

“If Hephaistion had not died, perhaps the empire would not have crumbled.”

“And perhaps Roxane would have killed him with Queen Stateira,” Artashir said grimly. “Or Perdiccas, wanting the Regency.”

“I think he was harder to kill than that,” I said. It made my chest ache still. We had been at the games. The boys’ footrace had ended, and a messenger came for the King, saying that he must come at once. I sat in my seat, watching Alexander hurry after the squire, feeling the sudden sense of foreboding that comes when something turns, something goes terribly wrong.

“We painted the roofs black,” Artashir said, still in his own memory. “All those pitched roofs, each one painted another brilliant color, golds and reds and purples and greens, the great summer palace of Darius the Great. We painted all the roofs black in mourning. The King said to, that we should do it in memory of Hephaistion.”

“I remember,” I said. “It was a beautiful palace before then.”

“It still is,” Artashir said. “It should have stayed a place of joy.”

“Yes,” I said, and for a moment I could imagine it as it should be decked for a wedding, with Damascene roses in bloom in the courtyards and the meadows of the mountains above green with summer, the temple of their goddess Anahita alight with lamps.

Artashir looked at me sideways. “When did you take your Companion's oaths?” he asked.

“Well, I joined the Companions after Gaugamela,” I said.

“That's not what I mean.”

“I know,” I said. I stretched my cramped left hand against my leg, the reins in my right. “Not long before the end. In Babylon.”

T
HE AIR OF
Babylon was moist and humid, at least in the gardens. An ancient king had built them about the palaces and temples, and they were accounted a great wonder, holding plants from all the known world. At least all the world that king had known. There were no Indian peach trees until we brought them, and none of the wild berries the Macedonians said they missed. Our world was larger than his had been.

It was an honor to guard the King, even in the middle of the night, even when there was nothing going on. Since an assassination attempt years ago there had always been one Companion on duty besides the regular guards, and rotating as the duty did. It was a rare and occasional honor that tonight was mine.

I stood outside the bathhouse, looking out over the gardens. Below, on the walk that curved around ornamental plants of this paradise, I saw the regular guards on watch waiting. I stood by the fretted door, unobtrusive and quiet. We had all heard the King was ill. The water eased him, and so he was spending the night in the bathhouse, with only an attendant or two. He would be well soon, surely. Many men had the summer flux in the heat of Babylon, or had brought malaria back from the marshes. The King would be well soon.

It was long past midnight. Above, the stars were wheeling on toward dawn. I heard a movement behind me and turned, thinking perhaps it was one of the attendants, slipping out to get something.

It was the King. His blond hair was damp, as though he had come from the bathing pool, and he wore a plain white chiton that anyone might have worn.

“My Lord,” I said.

He looked at me and half smiled. “Lydias of Miletus, is it? How do you fare?” Of course he knew the names of every man. He had put his arm around me himself, when Sati and Sikander lay on the pyre.

“Well enough, my Lord,” I said, as what else can one say?

Alexander shrugged, and stretched his hands out to lean on the carved railing that separated the bathhouse door from the garden below. “They are all asleep, in there. I do not like to wake Bagoas. He has not slept much since I was ill.”

“I hope you are better now,” I said, though he did not look it. I did not like the flush to his face.

He leaned on the rail, looking out, and in the light of the cresset along the wall his profile looked like a cameo, cut against the darkness beyond. “When I came out just now you looked sad.”

“I suppose I do, my Lord,” I said. How else should I look, when there had been nothing but grief in my heart these many months?

He nodded but did not look at me. “You mourned the Chiliarch Hephaistion. I saw you at the funeral.”

I took a breath. The night made me bold and sorrow made me reckless. “Yes, my Lord. Had he never known you, Hephaistion should have been a great man.”

Alexander smiled. “You saw that too, did you? I think you see too many things sometimes, Lydias of Miletus, a gift and a curse both. And a wise man does not ask for oracles when he does not wish to know.”

His mouth twisted in an expression that could have been rueful, or could have been the answer to some pain. “The choice of Achilles is easy. It's living and ruling that's hard.” He looked at me and his eyes were fever-bright. “Shall I tell you a story?”

“If you like, my Lord,” I said. I thought that he really should not be out of bed in the night air, and wondered how I could call Bagoas the eunuch unobtrusively.

His voice was quiet, like a dreaming child. “There was once a Titan named Prometheus who loved men more than he should, and thought that they could be more than insensible animals, always at the mercy of their fears and hungers. He watched them for a long time. And that fascination turned to love, the thing that undoes all men. At last the thought came to him that he might give them forbidden knowledge that would set them free. And so he stole fire from heaven and gave it to men. For that he was condemned to spend eternity in torment, sacrificed again and again, reborn to begin it over. Do you know that story, Lydias?”